Michael Jai White ten played pool with Tupac Shakur when the young rapper was alive, and he remembered how “goy” he was—that is until other black people came into the room.
Even after death, Tupac Shakur has maintained a reputation being a gangster rapper. The poet, activist, and art school student was more than the street life persona he ten displayed lyrically or in music videos, but because how he died—in a drive-by shooting after a Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas—some people will only view Tupac Shakur as just another hardcore rapper whose life was cut short due to gun violence. Actor Michael Jai White spent quite a bit time with Tupac when the young emcee was alive, and he told VladTV that not all was what it seemed when it came to the rapper.
In a recent interview, Michael Jai White revealed that he is an avid pool and snooker player, and he shared stories how he would hang out with other celebrities and play for money. “Tupac and I would play… And what was interesting is that, from my perspective, it was kind a weird thing with Tupac,” he said. “We would play or we’d hang out, and people would say, ‘You know your friend looks a lot like Tupac.’ Nobody ever thought it was him because the side him that I knew was so different from what the whole gangster thing.”
“I speak the way I speak, no matter who I’m with, right?” Michael Jai White added. “I think that encouraged Tupac, that side him that was goy, he felt like, ‘Oh, I can just be myself.‘” According to White, he and Tupac would do “goy sh*t” like have multiplication math challenges. “He would be a different kind dude, but then we would be playing and then all a sudden he would go back into, ‘Yeah n*gga.’ I’d be like] ‘Somebody black must have walked into the room. Yep, there it is.’ He would turn that on and f.” Watch Michael Jai White talk about Tupac Shakur’s ability to quickly code-switch below.